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soon to be beek needs advice

Hey everyone, a soon to be beekeeper here. Just need to ask some questions before i get my bees Friday from Miller Bee Supply. My first question is is it ok to go 9 frame in a 10 frame langstroth at the start? I just bought some 9 frame metal separators from miller that another beekeeper around uses. i dont know if he started with 10 frames or not though. Also how much sugar do you think they'll take weekly? i got a top feeder and entrance feeder, if i fill both will they be prone to robbing? ants? i live in NC if that makes any differance. Thanks in advance

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

If you have flowers blooming around your bee yard, then you probably won't need to feed at all. If you're really concerned, though, just dump a couple cups of granulated sugar on the bottom board before you install the bees. That way, if they (for whatever unforseen reason) really *need* the nutrition, they'll eat the sugar (although I highly doubt any other bees would think it worth the fight to rob it), but most likely they'll have plenty of nectar to eat, and simply toss it out of the hive as spoiled honey

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

The idea behind the 9/10 or 10/10 frames is that brood comb (which is what your deep will start out with) tends to be thinner than honeycomb. You can see this when a hive is more mature- the brood comb with take up no more than the width of the top bar of the frame, whereas a frame of honey comb thats filled and capped tends to bulge out a bit. The result is, if you want to preserve bee space, you take out a frame in your honey supers. So, you want your brood box frames to be packed in pretty tight, and your honey super frames spaced a bit wider.

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

Welcome BK! Entrance feeders are more prone to robbing. Bees remove granulated sugar. When the bees drop sugar in front of the hive ants move in to clean it up. Bees should never need more than a single feeder provides. You can use the entrance feeder for water so you do not waste your purchase. Nine frames in a ten will be drawn more irregular. It is better to start with ten and remove one after drawn. Interestingly the current trend is to use ten or even 11 frames in the brood super for more brood and shorter cells that the nurse bees can clean better. Bettter meaning remove Varroa and other unwanted conditions in the brood cells.

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

Thanks everyone, i think ill go 10 frame brood chamber, im thinking about going 2 brood chambers though, adding on when they need more space. Anyone have an idea of how quickly ill need to add on? There's tons of things blooming around here and a field of these yellow flowers nearby.

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

i installed my package and the queen was all curled up and barely moving. I figured she just might be feeding and put her in and installed the bees. I checked on them 2 days later and shes completely dead and the bees havent ate through the candy yet. I brought the cage inside and corked it on both sides. Do you think miller bee supply will replace my queen? im stopping by after school. I didnt do anything different from the videos and was very gentle. Has anyone ever got a replacement queen? Experience with miller bee supply? thanks in advance
p.s i only have one hive so making another queen from bringing brood over is not an option

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

I've had to have queens replaced when my order of queens got baked in a mail truck...some of the queens & all of the attendants were dead, and covered in queen candy, when I got them. It *should* be a simple matter of contacting the supplier & letting them know she was a "DOA."

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

So its probobly best to tell them she was dead on arrival then telling them my story right? and will my bees be fine queenless until she comes in? Theyve built tons of comb, im feeding through top feeder, and no entrance reducer.

Re: soon to be beek needs advice

You can tell them the truth...a queen who's curled up in a ball & barely moving IS Dead on Arrival...she just didn't quite realize it yet herself. If they refuse to replace her for free, then buy ONE queen from them today (your package bees won't last long without a good queen), and never buy anything at all from them again